


be

by QTCutie (Qtcutie)



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bad Parent Kurosaki Isshin, Canonical Character Death, Kuorsaki Isshin's A+ Parenting, M/M, Quincy Kurosaki Ichigo, Slow Build, Slow Burn, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:08:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24150334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qtcutie/pseuds/QTCutie
Summary: Ichigo is Human, Shinigami, Hollow, all three and something more, more than the sum of his parts.Even with half his soul gone, Ichigo is still First Protector. He'll find his way.Or:This is the one thing Mom ever put her foot down over, Ichigo thinks as he twists an arrow between his fingers, shuffling his feet until he feels settled again. Isshin shot down a lot of hobbies that Ichigo wanted to have as a kid, and for the most part Mom let him. But this was the one thing she insisted on. Ichigo remembers. They got into a big fight about it. It was the only time he ever heard his mother raise her voice in anger.It's funny. He can't remember what that sounded like.
Relationships: Grimmjow Jaegerjaques/Kurosaki Ichigo, Ishida Uryuu & Kurosaki Ichigo
Comments: 28
Kudos: 373





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Plouton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plouton/gifts).



> This is half-venting, half-self-indulgence, ngl.  
> No Grimmjow in the first chapter sry

Ichigo visits the cemetery a lot more often these days. 

War, he understands, has made him uncomfortably respectful of death. Of sacrifice. Of simply passing, back into the cycle. And maybe Masaki will return to the Living World someday in a new form, and maybe she won’t, but Ichigo will remember her as she lived anyways.

The cemetery is not really a place for the living.

It’s not just Masaki he’s remembering. He didn’t know all of the Soul Reapers who fell in their fight against Aizen and the Espada, but. Enough of their names are burned into Ichigo’s memory. More than enough of their faces. They flash before his closed eyes, so he tries not to close his eyes. Folds himself into perfect seiza, and bows low enough that his forehead meets the cool stone. 

He keeps incense in his backpack. He’ll have to bring new offerings soon. 

He remembers the Espada too. Or, tries to. As many as he can put names to. He knows that there were ten of them, and most of them he never even saw in person. Their names still trip on his tongue, sometimes, when he rolls them in his mouth. He won’t speak their names here. It would feel… wrong. To speak the names of Hollows in front of his mom. He doesn’t think she’d begrudge them sharing her shrine, but. Well. There’s a lot of other shit that needs explaining and only so much air in Ichigo’s lungs.

Example: Ichigo is dead.

The revelation doesn’t hit him as hard as it used to. And maybe he’s always kind of known, since Rukia shoved her sword through his chest, since Byakuya cut him down in the dark and the rain, because. A human dies when the Chain of Fate between body and soul is severed. Ichigo almost Hollowfied naturally, before he found his Shinigami powers, and. Pluses don’t do that. Not until they’re dead.

Ichigo is dead. His “body” is an organic gigai that’s doing a good job of holding his soul together while it heals, but it’s not  _ his _ body. Ichigo checked. There should be a little scar near his hairline from one of the times Isshin went overboard with his wake-up call, a crooked tooth from when Ichigo stepped in between Chad and some bullies. Things Urahara wouldn’t have known about. Details that were missed. Ichigo. Kind of misses them. Kind of wants to put them back, and his hands curl into tight fists against his thighs. 

Faces flash behind his eyes as he breathes out a sigh.

Flowers, Ichigo thinks as he straightens up. Next time, he’ll bring flowers. And some of Yuzu’s cooking. Maybe one of Karin’s finished needlework projects-- she has way too many of those laying around. 

Maybe next time he’ll have words too.

...

Ichigo is the first to notice when Karin starts sneaking out at night.

He’ll admit, it’s because he doesn’t sleep much anymore. War and violence haunt his dreams, and where those are absent there is just the yawning emptiness that Zangetsu used to fill. Ichigo lays awake at night staring at the ceiling, counting the dots that float in front of his eyes, uncomfortably aware of the sounds of the house settling in the dark.

The first time, her window makes an awful grating sound when she pushes it open, and it startles Ichigo so badly that he almost falls out of his bed. 

She’s out all night. Ichigo has to quash the urge to go after her-- there’s nothing he can do, after all, and. It’d be hypocritical, for Ichigo to insist that they don’t keep secrets. For Ichigo to berate her for not being careful. Karin and Yuzu, they’re growing up, and Ichigo, he’s already burning out. So instead, he lays there, tense in every muscle, until he finally hears the tell-tale sounds of Karin slipping back inside. Exhausted with relief, it’s the first time he sleeps for longer than an hour straight since--

The second night, the window still shrieks.

The third night, she finally gets some oil, and there’s only a  _ clunk _ to give away that the window has been opened at all.

The fourth morning, Ichigo ambles down stairs and into the kitchen. Karin is working on homework. Math. It’s always been her best subject. She’s never had to do homework for it over the weekend. Ichigo makes a small humming sound in his throat and pours himself a bowl of cereal that he knows he’s just going to push around and not actually eat.

His spoon taps next to the question she’s working on.

“Eighty-seven. Don’t let it get in the way of your studies.” 

Karin’s eyes widen and her breath picks up-- she knows she’s been caught, she’s just trying to figure and finagle her way out of it. And. That hurts, a little bit, because Ichigo  _ thought _ he’d taught the girls that they could come to him for  _ anything _ . But, also, he was away for a pretty long time there, fighting a war that wasn’t even his, and. He supposes they can be forgiven for thinking they can no longer rely on his presence. Fuck,  _ Ichigo _ can’t even rely on his own damn presence. 

He shoves a bite of cereal in his mouth like it’ll make his chest feel less tight and meanders towards the living room. Maybe one of those dramas Yuzu likes to watch is on. Ichigo has been meaning to catch up.

“Ichi- _ nii _ ?”

Neither of the girls have used honorifics for him since. Since Isshin’s “training” started, Ichigo thinks, and his stomach twists something fierce. He can’t turn around, because he knows there’s a look on his face that he can’t control but he doesn’t want Karin to see it either, so he gives a little acknowledging hum and hopes it doesn’t sound as strangled as it feels. 

“You know I love you, right? More than anything,” Karin says after a moment. And her voice is small, but determined. 

Ichigo turns and smiles and doesn’t care that she can probably see that his eyes are starting to water. 

“I love you too.”

...

As much as he loves the roof, Ichigo can’t bear to be up there right now.

First of all, summer heat is still clinging harsh, and Ichigo can’t bear to sit in the sun right now. Even inside, next to an open window with a fan blowing right on him, Ichigo feels overheated. It’s weird. He’s never been so aware of how  _ limited _ his body is without his reiryoku enhancing it, but now that he’s trapped in it he can’t  _ stop _ noticing his limitations. He gets overheated easily. He can’t run as far, can’t jump as high. It takes  _ time _ to heal-- Ichigo has a bunch of new scars on his elbows and knees where he’d landed carelessly and without thought and his skin had paid for it. 

Second of all, the rest of his old friends group still eats lunch up there, and Ichigo still can’t bring himself to butt in where he knows he’s no longer welcome.

Instead, he sprawls in the window sill of the second floor music room and watches fluffy white clouds roll by overhead. 

Mom’s Cross drags across the floor with every little motion, a thin, rasping sound that fills the silence. It’s solid metal, he should have been expecting it to be as heavy as it is, but. Maybe it’s just a weight he never expected to have to carry. Never expected to be able to carry-- Isshin watched Mom’s things like a hawk, those few years after her death, until Isshin thought Ichigo finally grew out of childhood superstitions. 

It was one of the first things Ichigo did when he got back, slipping that mahogany box from the back of Isshin’s closet. Someone had gotten to it first, if the empty depression where one from the twin Crosses for the girls should have been was any indication. But Mom’s was still there, silver and blue and heavy in Ichigo’s palm.

He’d tried to wear it around his neck, for a little while, but wearing it around his wrist just feels. Better. Right. In a way he doesn’t think he can explain.

Ichigo drags in a breath. Wets his lips.

“I don’t know if I can,” Uryū admits, before words can even start to shape on Ichigo’s tongue. “It’s-- I’ve known how to do this since I was a child. My grandfather taught me the same way he taught me to read. I’ve never taught anyone else.”

“ _ I don’t even know if you can _ ,” Uryū doesn’t say.

“ _ I don’t want to know if you can’t _ ,” Ichigo hears anyways. 

“I wanna try,” Ichigo says. “If you’ll teach me.”

...

The fletching tickles his ear. 

Isshin is probably wondering where he is.

The girls know where he is, of course, Ichigo isn’t going to leave them without giving them a way to get ahold of him, where exactly he is going to be, and where they should go if he isn’t where he should be. Nothing short of physical harm is going to make them tell Isshin where Ichigo is, though, and since Isshin won't raise a hand against them, Ichigo is safe in the knowledge that he is safe where he is. 

The air swoops from his chest in a steady fall. 

The arrow thuds into the second ring.

"Well done."

Ichigo hums, glaring at the target. It's better than he's been doing all week, but. He remembers being better than this. And that. Grates on him. Just a little. 

Silence: Uryū likes to make Ichigo ruminate on his mistakes before giving pointers. Stance too wide. Hands still shake, which wasn't ever a problem when Ichigo wielded Zangetsu, but now it keeps throwing him off. The stance is the more important problem, though. Adjusting for his natural motions is something Ichigo should pick up with practice. 

Uryū nods at Ichigo's soft explanation, and takes position to demonstrate proper form once more. 

This is the one thing Mom ever put her foot down over, Ichigo thinks as he twists an arrow between his fingers, shuffling his feet until he feels settled again. Isshin shot down a lot of hobbies that Ichigo wanted to have as a kid, and for the most part Mom let him. But  _ this _ was the one thing she insisted on. Ichigo remembers. They got into a big fight about it. It was the only time he ever heard his mother raise her voice in anger. 

It's funny. He can't remember what that sounded like. 

He notches the arrow and straightens his back. Tries not to let his shoulders rise up so much when he draws the bow. It's hard-- drawing a bow uses different muscles than swinging a sword, and truthfully Ichigo just can't train like he used to. 

Uryū's phone rings out a bright, painfully-familiar chime. 

The air swoops from Ichigo's chest in a steady fall.

The arrow thuds into the outermost circle, just on the edge of missing the painted paper entirely. 

"You should go," Ichigo says when Uryū doesn't make to leave. 

"They can handle this one without me." 

"You should go," Ichigo says again, eyes never leaving the target. He can almost picture Uryū's face-- eyebrows pinched, frown drawn deep. Measuring Ichigo up. Then, the soft sound of shoes against concrete. The click of a door closing. 

Shoulders too high. Hands shaking too badly. Ichigo takes a deep breath and notches another arrow. 


	2. Chapter 2

Hair like an oil slick and at least half as greasy. Otherwise pretty attractive, if you’re either into American greasers or can see past it. It’s mostly in the jaw, Ichigo thinks idly. In the jaw and in the warm brown of his eyes, and in the gently confident way his mouth curves into a smile. 

And the boredom must actually be driving him insane, if Ichigo is checking out customers. 

Mystery Arguably-Hot Guy disappears into the shelves, and Ichigo sighs as he turns back to the papers he has spread out behind the counter. Is he supposed to be doing homework on the clock? Not technically. But also, Ichigo works one of the slowests shifts with the chillest customers, he can trust that no one is going to mind and/or rat him out. Probably. Hopefully.

“Are you new here?”

Ichigo doesn’t do anything as impolite as sigh or roll his eyes, but he does groan internally as he raises his head. Mystery Arguably-Hot Guy is standing there with snacks and a soda and he doesn’t seem put off by the coolness of Ichigo’s smile. Just grins and dumps his stuff on the counter.

“Sorry, sorry, I just-- I think I’d remember a pretty face like yours.” 

He’s actually-- Ichigo is actually getting hit on. This guy is actually hitting on Ichigo. While Ichigo is at work. Wow, this is... Ichigo can’t actually say this has ever happened before. And it’s. Well. As far as novel experiences go, it’s not actually that bad? Mystery Arguably-Hot Guy rakes his gaze down Ichigo’s body, unabashedly checking Ichigo out, and Ichigo can’t help but flush a little under the attention.

He feels…  _ wanted _ .

He. Doesn’t actually know if he likes the feeling.

...

Reishi doesn’t so much flow like water as it flows like sand beneath Ichigo’s feet. He falls three times in as many minutes-- _ hirenkyaku _ is a bit like riding a skateboard, or a surfboard, but unlearning everything Yoruichi beat into his head about _ hohō _ is definitely harder than Ichigo expected it to be. He keeps trying to step forward, onto that part where reishi gives like quicksand rather than holding like sandstone, and it sends him tumbling over himself nine times out of ten. 

It doesn’t help that he keeps looking around and expecting to see where his fight with Aizen left the ground rended and gouged. No ghost town here, but no war either, and if it weren’t for the ragged edge of Ichigo’s soul he might even believe that none of it happened in the first place. But he still steps forward like he’s about to slip into a  _ shunpo _ , and it sends him sprawling out once again.

Uryū, bless him, says nothing. Just lets Ichigo pick himself up from the dust, brush himself off, and try again. It’s part  _ hirenkyaku _ training, part getting Ichigo used to sensing reishi. It’s. Different, from reiryoku and reiatsu. There’s no warmth, no flaring of emotion, no flickering of comfort, no press of killing intent. Reishi is something… inhuman, something natural, something old and lethargic and otherwise content to meander in every which direction unless careful hands press it into shape.

Ichigo’s hands are not careful.  _ Ichigo _ is not careful. He is blunt force and too much willpower and too little sense, sometimes, always pushing too hard, too far, too fast, and his feet slip forward to where reishi gives like quicksand and he ends up face-first in the dust.

Even this far out of Karakura town, there’s still light pollution. Ichigo heaves out a heavy breath as he flops over onto his back, strains his eyes for the barely-there curve of the Milky Way against the night sky. There were never any stars in Hueco Mundo. No stars in Seireitei, actually, and. There’s one good thing, Ichigo supposes. He gets to see the stars here. No ripping open gargantas, no getting permission to pass through a Senkaimon. Just. Lie back and stare up at the sky.

“Number twenty-eight?” Uryū asks, and Ichigo groans. Ichigo’s grades have been steadily rising, and ever since he scored equal marks as Uryū on a test Uryū has been twice as intense about study half of their half-study-half-training sessions. 

“My bag is right there. You can copy my worksheet, I won’t tell anyone.” What the fuck does Uryū even need top marks for? He’s going to school for fashion design. One B isn’t going to be the end of his academic career. 

“ _ Or _ , you can just tell me the answer that I know you remember.”

With a groan, Ichigo heaves himself up and lets  _ hirenkyaku _ carry him over to where Uryū is sitting. 

He doesn’t even completely wipe out this time.

…

There is a difference, between living and going through the motions of existing. 

Ichigo spends most of his day going through the motions of existing. He wakes from restless sleep, chokes down breakfast in the morning. Goes to school and ignores the pitying looks of his once-friends, ignores the way they not-so-subtly slip out sometimes. Pairs up with Uryū for class assignments, or some random student, or with no one at all. 

He attends kyūdō club in the afternoons.

Helps the old ladies with their groceries on the way to work.

Trains and studies with Uryū.

Goes home late.

Chokes down dinner.

Lays in bed at night, staring at the ceiling and willing restless sleep to take him sooner. 

He feels a little bit like a ghost, haunting the places where he’d once lived.

He feels a lot a bit like the shell of a man, living a shell of a life. 

Uryū tells him to meditate, so he meditates. Reaches into that yawning emptiness where Zangetsu should be and loses himself in it. There’s power there, but nothing to direct it, so it spills over Ichigo’s skin happily, water that flows warm and soft as a worn blanket, and Ichigo wonders if Uryū even knows what he is missing, without the voice of his soul whispering from within the whirlpool. 

The nights he meditates, Ichigo doesn’t even bother trying to sleep. The emptiness becomes an ache of loneliness, as agonizing as any wound. It’s a sword kissing his spine, a fist through his chest that curls around his heart. 

It’s a blade that pierces his skin as sweetly as a kiss and Mugetsu’s tears on his shoulder.

Ichigo sinks.

_ “All we wanted to protect… was you. _ ”

Ichigo  _ screams _ . 

...

Uryū lives on the third floor of an apartment building that looks one stiff wind from falling over.

Because the rent is low. Because it’s on the other side of Karakura town from the Ishida house. Because Uryū is willing to do just about anything to get out from under Ryūken’s thumb, including but not limited to making himself almost fully independent while still in  _ highschool _ , working himself to the ground between school and work and patrolling and training. Uryū likes to work himself up into talking in circles whenever he really gets into it, though, so Ichigo usually tunes it out, except to hope that the rest of the gang are still picking up Uryū’s patrols so the idiot can get enough rest. 

Ichigo has been here maybe a dozen times already, but for the first time he hesitates before gingerly lowering himself onto the ratty couch.

It’s still dark outside, and apparently neither of them thought to hit the lights, but Uryū could find the first aid kit blinded and half-dead. It’s been moving steadily closer to the couch ever since That Summer. It’s under the coffee table now, next to a few spare Seele Schneider. Easily within reach for when Ichigo inevitably hurts himself during training, when Uryū comes back from patrols all bruised and scraped up.

“Don’t flinch,” Uryū says, just before an alcohol-soaked patch of cotton presses gently against Ichigo’s busted lip.

Ichigo doesn’t flinch, doesn’t wince. There’s pain, but it’s nothing he’s not accustomed to. It’s. Kind of funny. Ichigo can only barely remember, but he used to be  _ such _ a little crybaby. A mama’s boy too. Now, his split lip stings and his chest aches and there’s something funny about his right ankle, but his eyes are dry, dry, dry.

The first aid kit closes with a click that seems almost too loud for the small space of the apartment.

With a shaky, careful sigh, Uryū leans forward until his forehead is pressed against Ichigo’s shoulder. There’s not much he can do with his hands shaking so bad. Ichigo curls his fingers around Uryū’s thin, cold wrists, rubs his thumbs in careful circles over the sharp lumps of ulnar bones. Takes comfort in the closeness. Doesn’t have the first clue when this started, this physical affection, this-- Ichigo hesitates to call it  _ codependence _ , doesn’t like the way that sounds on his tongue, what that implies, but he does like the way Uryū doesn’t even ask and pushing him away doesn’t even cross Ichigo’s mind.

“How long has this been going on?” Uryū asks, low and stern and filled with an emotion that Ichigo can’t-- won’t-- put a name to.

There’s no good answer to that. How long has Isshin been hitting Ichigo? A long time. Not as long as Ichigo can remember, but. Long enough that Ichigo had stopped even thinking about it. Until now, he supposes, because he can’t heal like he used to. Because now, the marks stay. Because now, Ichigo bleeds, and bleeds, and bleeds, and it’s stained the front of Ichigo’s shirt.

Ichigo averts his eyes instead of answering.

It’s a long time until sunrise.


	3. Chapter 3

“You’ve got work this afternoon?”

They’re in the music room again, papers spread out around them like the worst kind of whirlpool, the kind full of papercuts and numbers and hypotheticals that at this point only serve to make Ichigo’s head ache. They’ve gone over this top to bottom maybe a dozen times already, but it’s a big project worth a lot of points, and Kon has decided that they’re going to medical school, _“so help me God, Ichigo, if you let your grades slip_ \--”

“Hmm.”

Economics. Why does Ichigo need to know economics again? He has a slowly growing respect for people going into Business, who are going to _willingly_ subject themselves to this. It fits nicely right alongside Ichigo’s _deep_ and _vehement_ _hatred_ for this whole exercise.

“I’m going to take that as a yes. I’ll walk you.” 

Maybe if Ichigo’s brain starts leaking from his ears he won’t have to go to work today. Ah, but if he goes to work, then he doesn’t have to decipher the weird squiggle that is Uryū’s 3a.m. handwriting. Some of it doesn’t even look like the same _language_ anymore-- Ichigo didn’t know that Uryū knows Korean, but, hey, learn something new every day, right?

“Hrng.”

A bright, painfully-familiar chime. Ichigo doesn’t have to look up to know that Uryū already has his phone out. Probably staring at it like it has caused him some deep and personal offence. And, if they get anything less than top marks on this assignment, _it has_ , and Ichigo will take great joy in destroying it himself.

“Three-fifteen, Ichigo. Don’t leave without me.”

Something something liquidity something something… That equation doesn’t actually look right, but the solutions do, so Ichigo marks it with a yellow highlighter and moves on. It could just be that he can’t read his _own_ 3a.m. handwriting. The cruel irony.

“Hmm.”

Uryū’s shoes click sharp against the linoleum, and the door _thunks_ closed.

…

In ten months, no one visits him.

The thought leaves a sour taste in Ichigo’s mouth that the sickly sweet taste of cheap soda can’t quite wash out. He gets thirty minutes for his break. As he understands, Kon usually used the time to go see Orihime, eat her cooking and talk to her, always getting back fifteen minutes late. Ichigo sits on the steps in the alley behind the convenience store, eating a late lunch Yuzu packed for him and pretending he doesn’t feel the weight of eyes on him.

Pretending he doesn’t still feel the weight of his mother’s hand on his shoulder, the night she’d fought with Isshin over Ichigo’s kyūdō lessons. The night, Ichigo realizes, that she’d almost told him. Them. Ichigo and the girls. She’d squeezed so hard it’d been _painful_ , and Karin had made a hurt little sound at it, but Ichigo. Hadn’t. He still remembers the _fear_ in his mother’s eyes. It’d made her look, in hindsight, twenty-something-years-young and desperate to protect her children from what little she could protect them from.

Isshin had made her put her cross up. Isshin had made her stop practicing. Ichigo wonders, if Masaki would have been able to heal like he is, if she’d kept trying to manipulate reishi even after White had carved a place for himself in her soul. He wonders how desperate she had been to just _try_ \-- she was young, and scared, and she had family to protect. 

She was young, and scared, and she didn’t want to take the risk.

Ichigo is young, and he is--

Ichigo rubs at his shoulder. There’s a flicker of violet-black in the corner of his eye, the tell-tale smell of orchids and rust as a Hell Butterfly flits past. 

He throws his empty soda bottle in the dumpster and heads back to work.

…

Eight counts in. Hold for one. Exhale for seven, at a pace that would make a candle flicker but not go out. 

Ichigo shifts his feet until he feels settled. Pulls himself in just a little bit-- he’s still used to Zangetsu, used to a stance a bit wider, less grounded but more flexibility to throw his weight around. He didn’t know the basics of zanjutsu, but it was close enough to karate that it wasn’t an awkward shift. 

Kyūdō isn’t so forgiving. _Reishi_ isn’t so forgiving. Ichigo is determined to do this right.

Back straight. Shoulders relaxed. Reishi pours through Ichigo’s fingers less like water and more like quicksand-- he almost can feel the grains as they slip past, even if he can’t see them. Even if he _never_ sees them. He can feel the eddies and swirls, where the flow grows wide and lazy or thin and quick, the way reishi catches on his new callouses. Ichigo is not careful, but he _can_ be careful, when he puts his mind to it.

Nock the arrow. Eight counts in. There’s less resistance than he was expecting, against the slow arc of the draw, and for some reason it makes it even harder to keep his shoulders down. He manages, though. Carefully. He wants to do this _right_.

Hold for one.

Ichigo thinks of the first time he saw Uryū draw his bow. Eager eyes lit up by that blue-white glare. Steady hands-- Uryū always has steady hands. Has always had steady hands. Ichigo thinks of a sidewalk, of a seat in the window in a classroom, of a futon spread out in the Fourth, of cuts and bandages and poison in the veins, and steady hands.

Exhale for seven, at a pace that would make a candle flicker but not go out. 

The air swoops from Ichigo's chest in a steady fall.

The arrow sinks into target, just beyond the edge of the bullseye, all the way down to the fletching. Ichigo can’t see that blue-white glare, but he can taste the power, like silver coating the back of his tongue. Like sand, like snow, like something pure, like bitter medicine hidden in the food. 

Ichigo’s hands shake.

"Well done," Uryū praises from his place at Ichigo’s side, his own bow a heat-shimmer in his hands. Ichigo can’t tell if he can almost see what is there, or if his brain is tricking him into thinking he can almost see what is there. He can unquestionably feel the way reishi flows, guided carefully by Uryū’s hands, and-- Ichigo isn’t careful, but he _can_ be careful, and he _can_ do this right.

Eight counts in. Hold for one. Exhale for seven, at a pace that would make a candle flicker but not go out. 

The air trembles as Uryū draws his bow, and Ichigo twists reishi around his arrow, and together they settle into stance.

…

“Ichigo.”

Concrete doesn't make the best bed, but. The cold is nice. The sweat drying on Ichigo’s skin isn’t so nice, neither is the particularly cruel rock trying to dig its way into his kidney, but Ichigo is. Bone-tired. His shoulders ache, and his arms feel like jelly. It’s kind of satisfying though. Physical proof that Ichigo is improving, beyond flickers and heat-shimmers.

“Hng.”

It’s kind of a shame though. Blue isn’t really Ichigo’s color. Neither is white, really. Blue clashes with his hair, and white makes Ichigo look all washed-out. Maybe Uryū can make Ichigo something. He doesn’t _really_ want to go back to black, but it really _is_ his color. As is red, now that Ichigo thinks about it. Kinda. Dead opposite of traditional Quincy colors, but Ichigo supposes that he’s not really a traditional Quincy. Eh. Uryū’ll make it work.

“Ichigo, you can’t sleep out here.”

Can’t sleep yet at all, actually-- they’ve a project to finish, and Ichigo has an English paper to write. Yuzu _shouldn’t_ still be awake, but even if she isn’t she sent Ichigo some pictures of a homework sheet that was giving her trouble. Between Ichigo and Uryū, it shouldn’t be hard to come up with an explanation she’ll understand.

“Hmm.”

Uryū’s thigh presses against Ichigo’s shoulder, and he doesn’t even have the decency to look ruffled after all the training they’ve been doing, the bastard. He has his phone out in his lap, and from the way he swipes away notifications as quickly as they pop up Ichigo knows that Ryūken must be trying to hold a stilted, one-sided conversation. At least Ryūken is _trying_ \-- Ichigo has spent two nights at home this week, and he doesn’t know if Isshin has even noticed his absence.

“... I can pull out the futon, but I don’t think I have anything for breakfast.”

Right. They were supposed to pick up groceries. Too late now, Ichigo supposes, and fishes his phone out from where he is laying on it. One message from Karin that’s just three heart emojis, code that she’s going to be out tonight and not to worry if he comes home and she’s not there. Two messages from Yuzu-- one of them is from Kon, actually, complaining on Yuzu’s behalf that Ichigo didn’t rotate his laundry last night and left Kon in there with wet clothes. The other is actually from Yuzu, and...

“Stay over at mine. Goatface is pulling an overnight, and Yuzu won’t mind cooking for one more.”

Okay, maybe Isshin not noticing is by design. Uryū makes a huffy little sound as he stands and brushes dirt and dust off his clothes, but he doesn’t hesitate to offer his hand to help Ichigo up. Leans against Ichigo’s shoulder and together they just. Stand there, for a moment. Breathing. Uryū’s phone is buzzing in his hands. Ichigo is thinking about whether or not he should bother pulling out the futon, because neither of them actually care about curling together on Ichigo’s bed, and Uryū has been almost stepped on before during Isshin’s over-enthusiastic wake-up calls.

Uryū snags Ichigo’s bag from the ground before Ichigo can grab it, then pauses. “Can… can she make pancakes?”

Yuzu can make _anything_.

Uryū looks _delighted_ when Ichigo tells him so.


End file.
